8/12/01 - This webpage has been retired. The new one is here. Links may be broken here.
8/8/01 - We've had quite a few reports of KodakPCD cutting CDs that can't be read by Kodak's N2000 player. Be forewarned. Meanwhile we have at least one new developer working on the source code, so hopefully we'll have a new version soon.
7/29/01 - Just uploaded the source to KodakPCD. Alexander has been very busy and unable to update the utility. If you are a software developer who wishes to contribute to developing KodakPCD, click here.
5/25/01 - Alexander's back from Greece. He'll be working on all the reported problems as he has time.
5/15/01 - I've uploaded a slightly newer version of kodakpcd (010429) that Alexander sent me before going on vacation. It doesn't appear as if anything major has changed.
5/15/01 - Several users have reported trouble with creating CDs larger than about 55meg. I've passed this on to Alexander who should be able to address it when he returns from vacation.
5/4/01 - Alexander is on vacation in Greece for 2-3 weeks.
Not for the squeamish, Alexander L's utilities are a lot easier to use if you are familiar with the DOS command line. If you aren't, I'll try to walk you through the steps in enough detail that you can figure it out. Hopefully in the near future we'll find time to put a pretty GUI over top of this utility, but for now we'll just suffer.
Any questions about the utility should be directed to me. This way Alexander is free to improve his utility and doesn't have to do "customer support". I promise I'll try not to tell anyone to reinstall Windows. Please save me some time by reading through the "Known Limitations" section that follows before emailing me. Bear in mind that Alexander and I work on this in our free time, so please try and be patient. We are really lucky to have a non-Kodak utility to do this.
N2000 Compatibility - CDs created with this utility do not seem to work right on the Kodak N2000 player.
Errors Are Hard To See - If an error occurs, it is sometimes hard to tell, and you might end up cutting a coaster because the .trk files are bogus. If the utility seems to run instantly, then something is definitely wrong. Also look at the last few lines after the utility is complete and see if there is an error message.
CD Size Limitation - 5/15/2001 There is a known CD size limitation. The current utility can't make a CD bigger than about 55meg or so. Alexander has been notified and he will be working on fixing this issue when he returns from vacation.
Can't See Images on PC - This is a known issue. This utility does not create a valid ISO9660 filesystem. Only a Photo CD player can properly access the images on the CDs created with this utility. Alexander will address this in the future.
PCD File Compatibility - The utility cannot handle PCD files from original Photo CDs. It works with PCD files from Graphics Workshop Pro.
HP 7100 CD Writer - One user has reported that the HP7100 cd writer doesn't work with the cuesheets generated by this utility. This could be a hardware/CDRWin related issue. Email me if you have had success or failure with this CD drive.
Miscellaneous Bugs - There are probably other miscellaneous bugs hiding in the utility. Please contact Johann at SourceForge.
Please note that these instructions are obsolete and refer to an unsupported version of KodakPCD that is no longer available. They are kept here for historic reasons.
First, download the program from SourceForge. If you are an old hand at the DOS prompt, you can skip all this and read the section near the bottom entitled "The New README". Everyone else, get ready to sweat.
Please note that these instructions are obsolete and refer to an unsupported version of KodakPCD that is no longer available. They are kept here for historic reasons.
After you download the kodakpcd.zip file, you'll need to extract it. I suggest extracting it to your c: drive in a directory called "c:\kodakpcd". For simplicity, the rest of this discussion will assume you've done that. Those who would like to use another directory name are of course welcome to.
There are several ways to extract .zip files. I use the DOS command-line. Here are the steps.
Use Graphics Workshop Pro to create a set of .PCD files for inclusion on your Photo CD. Alternatively, if you are more adventurous, use ImageMagick to convert your images to PCD format (it's just as hard to use as Alexander's utility). Make sure the image's names are no longer than 8 characters. Names like IMG0001.pcd are fine. Names like MyTripToNovaScotia.pcd are not. The images will be sequenced on the Photo CD in number order, so make sure IMG0001.pcd is the first image you want on the CD.
Now copy all those images from wherever you've been working on them, into c:\kodakpcd\image. This is where Alexander's utility will be looking for them.
Please note that these instructions are obsolete and refer to an unsupported version of KodakPCD that is no longer available. They are kept here for historic reasons.
Now it's time to go back to the DOS prompt and use the utility. If you didn't close the DOS window, you should already be sitting in the c:\kodakpcd directory. All you need to do is type "patch" (no "quotation marks") and press enter. The utility will now place your images into a set of .trk files for burning to CD.
Here's the easy part.
Bring up CDRWin. Press the "Record Disc" button (it's the first one). Press the "Load Cuesheet..." button. Find the "photo.cue" file, it is in c:\kodakpcd\data, and open it. Insert a blank CD-R, and press the "Start Recording" button.
If you've made it this far, congratulations. Hopefully in the near future the use of this utility will be simplified. For now, we'll have to deal with it as is. Alexander will be continuing to improve this utility, and I would request that all questions be sent to me so that we can avoid slowing him down.
Please note that these instructions are obsolete and refer to an unsupported version of KodakPCD that is no longer available. They are kept here for historic reasons.
Here's my edited version of Alexander's original README. If you are familiar with the command line, you can just read through this and it should be pretty obvious what needs to be done.
Using the Program Extract the program to the drive and directory you want e.g. d:\photo After that you'll have a directory structure like this: d:\photo d:\photo\data d:\photo\image You can use Graphics Workshop Pro (with Patch 11 or newer) to create the .pcd files. You'll also need CDRWin 3.7 or newer to burn the photo-cd! Now to the work: 1. Convert your pictures using GWS to .pcd format. Note that the .pcd file names must not be greater than 8 characters long. Names like "IMG0001.PCD" are ok. Names like "MyTripToCanada.PCD" are not. 2. Copy the .pcd files to the "d:\photo\image" directory. The sequence of the images on the PhotoCD will be based on the order of images when sorted alphabetically. 3. Now run d:\photo\patch.bat 4. Now run CDRWin 5. Open the cuesheet photo.cue from the "d:\photo\data" directory. 6. Select "Start" Now hope that everything was right and try it!!!